Manchester: Naturally Proactive and Curatorially Inquisitive
Jane Chavez-Dawson
Manchester’s art scene, like most, has a multitude of varying facets with simultaneous conversations taking place. When one cultural gap becomes free, it is immediately filled, and if there isn’t one to fulfill a particular need then one is quite simply forged.
Today’s Manchester (like the Manchester of yesteryear) is constantly changing, ever-evolving, with the spirit of the Industrial Revolution and the echoes of Ingles and Marx still in the rafters. The 1996 IRA bomb did not put a stop to the process of gentrification, but instead spurred it on. Sometimes it seems as though there isn’t a warehouse or factory or mill that hasn’t been converted. Loft apartments have sprung up in every conceivable nook and cranny of the city centre. The face of Manchester has changed immeasurably over the past decade or two, but what of Manchester’s prolific creative cultural activity and its authentic swagger? They are, after all, both the heart and the lifeblood of the city.
Like all major British cities, Manchester has several large art institutions. The Cornerhouse, Manchester Art Gallery, the Whitworth Gallery and, more diversely of late, the Urbis–yet it is only recently that such venues have begun inviting Manchester-based artists to work with them. Previously, these venues preferred to display the work of nationally and internationally renowned artists and shied away from those artists perceived as being "regional." This state of affairs is beginning to change, but it is not so much the policies of the venues that are changing but the standing of the Manchester-based artists themselves.
Since the 19th Century and the establishment of art colleges in the city, there has always been an active artists’ community in Manchester. Today, artists continue to work in the city’s redundant mills and converted warehouses. However, the way in which artists perceive themselves has changed radically in recent years. The performance group Index arrived in the 90s and morphed into conceptual art groups such as the Annual Programme (Martin Vincent and Nick Crowe), Bono & Sting (Graham Parker and David Mackintosh), and Work & Leisure International (Laurence Lane and Paulette O’Brien). In later years these groups merged into the International3. These artist-led initiatives have brought about a new attitude regarding the position of artists in Manchester; the members of the group were initially attracted to the city because of its music scene and the energy that emanated. Like the musicians they so admired, they tended to refer to themselves as Manchester-based artists. When it came to venues for their art, these new arrivals introduced a no-space-is-sacred mentality. They also had a crafty talent for extracting funding from the various sources. To the bemusement of the local population, art began appearing in unorthodox locations, no longer was it left to big art institutions, clubs and bands to dictate and shape the city’s culture. International3 had shifted from being an artist-led space with an exhibition program to a commercial space that had begun to represent artists. Equally, established artists have been represented and prompted by London based art dealer and collector Paul Stolper, while David Powell, a Manchester dealer, has run the growing Philips Contemporary Art Gallery for the last nine years with much success. Richard Goodall’s contemporary photography and poster gallery also brings international collectors to the city. There is a warren of local artists’ studios such as MASA, Rogue Artists Studios, Suite, Islington Mill, Kings Arms and Bankley, which provide regular open studios, networks and a loose bond of community.
Present-day artists continue to make things happen rather than waiting for them to happen, becoming opportunists in the very best sense of the word. Such as The Apartment, initially started in 2004 by artists Paul Harfleet and Hilary Jack, in a city centre tower block flat. From its inaugural show, which presented the work of MA students from one of the universities, it has now progressed to internationally acclaimed artists, such as Ken Chu. Again stressing the sentiment that if local artists are unable to secure "official" avenues to display their work, they will create their own. Similarly, the artists Sophia Crilly and Mark Kennard are launching Bureau, a space that returns to a purpose-built pure white cube as an environment to show art and artist’s videos. The latter was previously shown under the banner of "Pure Screen," a showcase instigated by Crilly whilst program co-ordinator at Castlefield Gallery. Bureau will neatly fit into the current artist-led arena by creating a platform to examine contemporary notions of painting in the widest possible sense.
Press and media coverage of artists and their activities is fundamental to any burgeoning art scene, in order to gain local support, national and global recognition. Despite Manchester’s limited press infrastructure, in terms of their one local newspaper, this has never deterred groups from attempting to set up new publications. Versus, a short-lived Manchester based contemporary art publication, originated by Heidi Reitmier, demised quickly after their office was hit with a bomb by the IRA in 1996. Flux magazine has fared better, created at the tail end of 1996, by its publishers Lee Taylor and Claire Lomax. They hoped to forge a new breed of publication that wasn’t either London-centric or a typical style publication. Flux sought to be a creative and cultural platform for many writers, designers, photographers, illustrators, stylists and artists but strove to be more than just a cross-cultures title by being a venue for art, with FLUX SPACE. This is a curated space, a gatefold at the back of the publication for artists to create original work taking into consideration its contextual setting alongside their current practice. Flux plays an important part of a larger art community locally and nationally, instigating exhibitions, events and collaborations with various art institutes ranging from the Cornerhouse to the Baltic (Gateshead, the North East Arts Factory, UK). Recently, impressing itself onto the scene with the motto "Think locally, act globally!" is the bi-annual Internationaler. Specifically a critical art publication with an editorial board including local artists such as Nick Crowe, Rachel Goodyear, James Hutchinson and Laurence Lane, their editorial premise to "promising greater-depth and open-ended discussion" on contemporary art practice. Between the worlds of magazines is Deletia, an artist-run collective by Paul Stanley; it takes as a starting point that art is the dialogue between the artist and the viewer. Deletia is a parasitical publication in that it rents spaces in other publications for artists to display work. To date, it has done so as a loose insert in Art Monthly and a full-page advert in Art Review, seminal British art publications. David Osbaldeston is another artist whose work is embodied in the form of a publication–Stellar–that creates a playfully sycophantic fanzine meticulously recreated (by hand) of a chosen artist’s paraphernalia. Osbaldeston’s Stellar questions accepted truths in relation to the artist and their art. At times, it is produced in cooperation with the subject, while on other occasions guerrilla production techniques are employed.
On the outskirts of Manchester is the controversial ImiTate Gallery set up Franz Otto Novonty and Tanja Jager (both graduates of BA Interactive Arts and MA Art as Environment from Manchester Metropolitan University). ImiTate’s controversy isn’t necessarily the ground-breaking avant-garde work on show, though some of it can arguably be stated as such, but more the ethos and outlook of the gallery’s attitude: mixing non-artists work with professional, creating conceptual-based public art projects in no-go zones in Manchester’s poorer suburbs.
The Manchester scene no longer has to shout as it now endures a strong independent recognition, with a growing international and national profile. These have stemmed from many sources, ranging from the art courses of Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Fine Art and MIRIAD (Manchester Institute for Research & Innovation in Art & Design), with many of its graduates and lecturers residing and being proactive. The Manchester art scene is made up of individuals who are curatorial inquisitive and who not only seek to be a part of something but proactively make things happen.
